“That’s good,” she heard Don yell. “Mikey, Sam, left flank. Cooper, Dillon, go right. Walker, you’re with me. Looks like we’re a little late to the party, boys, but maybe there’s still a few slices of cake.”
Megan’s initial thought was that Don had lost his mind, but she caught on fairly quickly. And apparently Joe did too. “Three down here, four along the trail,” he yelled, as if sharing information with his rescuers. “And I think the sheriff got a couple out the window. There’s not many left, boys, but help yourselves.”
It was absurd, and Megan almost laughed, but then she remembered the surprised look on the face of the man she’d shot, and she wondered if she’d ever laugh again. Joe was back to his listening pose, and Don was scanning the forest, too, but there was no sign of movement. Joe signaled that he was coming up, and Megan found whatever courage she had left and eased out of her hole a little, far enough so she could help cover Joe as he climbed.
He was quick and quiet, and when he reached them he crouched down beside her. “Are you okay?” he demanded, and she nodded. He kissed her, quick and hard, and then turned to Don. “I think we should still go over the ridge. We can’t be sure it’s cleared out down there, and there’s only three of us. We can call your guys and have them send out a few SWAT teams or something. Okay?”
Don nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They were almost to the top of the hill, further than Megan and Don had made it the time before, when Joe looked back from his place in the lead. His face was sweaty and dirty, and he had blood coming down his arm from some injury Megan hadn’t even noticed earlier, but he was grinning a little. “’Maybe there’s still a few slices of cake’? Really? That’s your version of psychological warfare?”
“Maybe my guys were hungry,” Don said, and all of them smiled for a moment before reality returned. Then they put their heads down and kept climbing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Megan wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so tired. It was past midnight, and it had been a hell of a day, and things didn’t seem to be wrapping up. She was still stuck in the interrogation room she’d been in since midafternoon. She’d gotten up once to see if the door was locked, and it wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she was strong enough to open it. She was worried about the people who might be watching her from behind the glass, worried about the looks on the faces of the people she’d see outside the door. She didn’t want to make the situation worse. She wanted to be cooperative, to prove that she was one of the good guys, calm and reasonable and compliant.
The problem was, she couldn’t calm herself, and she was fast losing the ability to feel reasonable or compliant either. When the door opened and one of the agents from earlier came back in, she thought maybe she was going to cry. But instead of sitting down and asking her the same damn questions for the umpteenth time, he smiled gently at her. It made her wonder if he was a father. Maybe he had a daughter about her age. “You should go get some sleep, Ms. Archer,” he said. “We can get in touch with you if we need anything further.”
It seemed too simple, but Megan stood up quickly. Then she stopped. “What about Joe? And Don?”
“Deputy Gallineau is still working—he’s talking to some of our agents in the conference room, I believe.”
That sounded good. Don could show them the records Megan had found, the suspicious interference in the deputies’ work. “And Joe?”
“Mr. Cody is still needed for more questioning.”
“Why? Joe saw the exact same stuff I did. I mean, we were apart for—five minutes, maybe? If that?”
“And during that time, at least four men died.” The agent raised one eyebrow. “Mr. Cody is also of interest to us in a variety of other investigations, and as we are currently reviewing all work done from this office, we will need to speak to him extensively.”
“Has he been arrested? What are the charges?”
“We’ve already spoken to his lawyer, Ms. Archer. I assure you, we will not keep him for a moment longer than necessary.”
“He’s not going to go anywhere,” Megan argued. “This is his town. He’s got family here.”
“The last time Mr. Cody lived here, he left without notice and stayed away for ten years, whereabouts unknown. We’d rather not repeat that situation again.”
Megan fought to keep her mouth shut. If Joe hadn’t told the feds where he’d been, that was his decision. It wasn’t just about keeping his military record secret, it was also his lifelong distrust of the police and resentment of authority. The Cody code of silence was foreign to her, but native to him. She disagreed with it, but she needed to respect his decision. “He’s a good man,” Megan said instead. “He saved my life.”
“And obviously that will influence how you feel about him. But we need to keep things a bit more businesslike here.” The agent’s smile didn’t seem gentle and friendly anymore. It just felt patronizing.
“I’m not leaving without him.” She crossed her arms and jutted out her chin.
“Fine,” said the agent. Megan had been hoping for a bit more of a fight, but she turned back toward her seat anyway. But the agent stepped forward. “Not in here. You can wait in the front room. The public area.”
“I work here,” Megan said. “That’s my desk over there.”
“I’m afraid that desk has been assigned to someone else. Temporarily, of course. You’ll want to contact your office to see what they’d like you to do, but we’ve got nine dead bodies, and one of them is your sheriff. We won’t know until the autopsy whether he died of his wounds or from the fire, but either way, it was murder. We’ve got allegations of corruption against a DEA agent, and we’ve still got a serious problem with narcotic production and trafficking in this region. The FBI is going to be spending quite a bit of time in Shadow Valley for the foreseeable future, and we’ll need office space.” He stepped out of the doorway. “Shall I have someone show you out?”
Megan wasn’t sure what the precedent was for being dragged out of a police station, but she didn’t think she wanted to investigate. “I’ll be in the lobby,” she said with whatever dignity she could find.
It was strange, walking through the station’s main room now. It hadn’t ever seemed exactly friendly to her, but it had at least grown familiar. Now, with almost all of the previous occupants suspended pending an investigation, and new, stern faces replacing them, it felt as if she was starting all over again. But that wasn’t right, she decided. She wasn’t starting anything, not in this building. Her work here was over and she was glad. The governor’s office might not thank her, but she’d done something real. It felt good.
Just before Megan pushed the door to the lobby open, she turned and looked back at the one interrogation room that still seemed to be occupied. She might be done with the room as a whole, but that didn’t mean she was ready to leave everyone in it behind. Not by a long shot.
She went out to the foyer and looked at the molded plastic chairs. They weren’t designed for sleeping, but as tired as she was, she didn’t think it would be a problem. One of the seats was already taken though, and as Megan walked over, Alex, Joe’s nephew, stood up courteously.
What was a fourteen-year-old kid was doing hanging out at a police station after midnight?
“Hi, Ms. Archer.” Apparently he was allowed to talk to her now. “My mom sent me. She wanted me to wait for you, and make sure you were okay. Make sure you didn’t need anything.”
“Me? Not your uncle?”
“Uncle Joe? Something this big, he won’t be out for a while.”
“But he didn’t do anything wrong. Doesn’t it bother you, the way they’re treating him? He and I were involved with this just the same, and he’s still in there. Does that seem fair?”
Alex looked as if he was speaking to a small child. “Fair? I don’t know about fair. You know what they
say about Codys, though—don’t worry too much about blaming them for something they didn’t do, ’cause you can be sure there’s lots they did do that they ain’t been caught for.” He sounded matter-of-fact.
“But, Alex—that’s you, isn’t it? A Cody?”
“Nah. I’m a Watson. My mom’s a Cody, sure, but not my dad. Uncle Joe says that’s my ticket out of this mess. He says as long as I don’t screw up, I can do what I want to do.”
“But if you were a Cody, you’d be trapped?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” He smiled. “Don’t go feeling too sorry for them, miss. They don’t have it too bad. And they do plenty to deserve the trouble they get.”
Megan wondered what it must have been like for Joe to grow up in a town where even his closest relatives had that attitude. No wonder he’d gotten out as soon as he could, and gone far, far away. The miracle was that he’d come back. Then Megan remembered why Joe had returned. She thought of the pictures she’d seen of this boy’s mother, and the story of what had happened to his father. She couldn’t think about any of that though, not right then. “I’m just going to stay here for a while, Alex. Thank you, though.”
“Stay here? Really?”
“I can walk to the motel if I need to. It’s not far.”
“Uncle Joe’s seriously not coming out anytime soon. You could go to the motel, sleep through the night, have a shower and breakfast and come back, and he’ll still be right in the same place.”
“I guess that’s probably true. But I still—I want to be here. It’s what seems right.”
Alex looked skeptical, but he finally shrugged. “Okay, I guess. My mom’s going to be pissed at me though. She said to make sure you made it somewhere safe.”
“I’m in a police station, Alex. Where could I be safer?”
“I guess I can try that line,” he said. “I don’t think she’s going to buy it though.”
“Are you going to be okay? I mean, you live way out in the country. Are you going to get home okay? How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve got my mom’s truck.”
“Aren’t you fourteen, Alex? You can’t have your full license yet.”
Alex grinned, and it reminded Megan of his uncle. “All this fuss going on? There’s no cops out there pulling people over for license checks. Not tonight.”
Well, that was pragmatic. Megan thought she should probably say something more, but Alex had a point. With everything that had happened, and still was happening, she really didn’t have the energy to worry about one kid driving a car before he was old enough. “Thanks for checking on me, Alex. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully, and then he was gone.
Megan settled into the hard chairs to wait. She dozed off a few times, sitting up with her head leaning back against the wall, and if the awkward angle made her snore a little, well, no one was sitting close enough to hear. There was a surprising amount of traffic through the foyer, enough that she barely got her eyes shut before someone new was coming through. Feds, she was sure, striding in and out, talking busily, taking charge. It was comforting, in a way, but it was annoying too. They were there to investigate corrupt cops and murderous meth dealers, so why was the only person being detained an innocent citizen?
She shifted her seat when the first rays of sunlight started shining through the glass doors. They were blinding, but she wanted to feel them on her face. The next time the door opened, she could only see a silhouette of the person coming in, but right away she knew it wasn’t a fed.
Joe’s sister. Shannon. The one who’d been pissed at Megan for rejecting her offer of Joe’s services. The one who’d been beaten so badly by her husband.
Shannon eased into the chair next to hers, lifted the brown paper bag she was carrying and put it on Megan’s lap. “Tina said you like grilled cheese,” she said. “It’s not the world’s most traditional breakfast.” She handed over the paper coffee cup she’d been carrying. “And she said cream and sugar.”
Megan’s stomach twisted and growled, and she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten. “Thank you. Tina’s got a good memory.” She peeked into the bag, and the smell of melted cheese almost made her light-headed. “Do you mind if I…”
“Eat. Go ahead. That’s why it’s here. I had breakfast at home.”
Megan didn’t need to be told twice, and she pulled out the waxed-paper wrapped sandwich. She set her coffee on the free chair next to her, unwrapped the grilled cheese and took a big bite. It was perfect. “Thank you so much,” she said as soon as her mouth was empty.
“They didn’t feed you last night?”
Megan tried to remember. Everything after the shoot-out was blurred together, dreamlike. “I think they offered, but I was keyed up. I couldn’t really eat.”
Shannon nodded. They sat in silence for a while, and then Shannon turned toward Megan. “Alex said you’re waiting for Joe?”
Megan nodded.
“It could be a while. I talked to his lawyer.” She shook her head. “He says the feds are fighting hard to hang on to him. They’re talking about him being a material witness. Saying he hasn’t given a complete statement. The lawyer says Joe’s given the only statement he’s got, the cops say they want more. It could go on for a long time. I’m sure he wouldn’t expect you to sit out here.”
Megan shook her head. She wasn’t exactly clear on what she was going to say, but she started anyway. “I’m not waiting just for him. I mean, I’m waiting for him. But not because I’m trying to… I’m not worried about what he thinks, exactly. Not worried about what he’d expect.”
Shannon frowned in confusion. “So, what are you doing? Why are you waiting?”
“I just… I guess I’m just bearing witness, you know?” Shannon still looked a bit confused, and Megan didn’t blame her. “I know I’m new to town, and it’s not my place to go charging around trying to change things. And I know I don’t know the whole story. But, to me, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think Codys are getting a fair shake in this town. I know Joe isn’t, and I expect he’s not alone. It seems like a lot of people are doing stuff the way they’ve always done it, and thinking what they’ve always thought, just because it’s a nuisance to change. I guess I just want to… I want to bear witness to what they’re doing. I want them to at least think about it, and then if they’re confident that they’re right, okay.” Megan took a deep swallow of her coffee. She wasn’t usually much of a speechmaker.
Shannon was quiet for long enough that Megan started to worry. Had she said something offensive? She didn’t think so, but maybe. Maybe it was presumptuous of her to come in like this and start making pointless gestures. Then Shannon quietly said, “Joe didn’t kill Dave. My husband. That’s what he said, and I believe him.” She shook her head. “He said Dave deserved killing, and I agree with him on that, but he said he wouldn’t be able to look Alex in the face, not if he’d been the one who killed his dad. He told Alex the same thing, and I know Alex believes him.”
Megan just nodded. Thinking about Alex helped her make sense of it all. Of course Joe wouldn’t want to kill his nephew’s father.
“But the whole town thinks he did,” Shannon continued. “I mean, most of them don’t care, but they assume that because he’s a Cody, he’s a criminal.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of what I was getting at.”
“He came back here for me.” Shannon said. “He was gone, away from all this crap, and he came back because I needed help.”
Megan had no idea what she was allowed to say. Shannon knew where Joe had been. His discharge had been effective about a month before he’d returned to Shadow Valley, so Shannon wasn’t wrong. He’d apparently been getting started on something else before deciding to return home. He had come back for her. “But he stayed,” she said. “You didn’t
need him to, right? He did that on his own. And from what I’ve seen, he seems happy here. He knows people prejudge him, and it’s annoying, but he seems strong enough to handle it.”
“Maybe.” Shannon sounded like she was thinking about it. “I know it used to drive him crazy. In high school, he and Anna were like Romeo and Juliet, practically. You know, a Cody dating the sheriff’s daughter. Especially Joe—I don’t know why, but everybody seems to think that he’s the head Cody, or something. Even back then, but more so now.”
“He seems like a leader, probably. Confident. The way he carries himself.” Megan let herself imagine the way Joe walked into the diner, easy and relaxed, like he owned the place. Like he owned the town.
“So if you don’t think it bothers him that much, why are you doing this?”
It was a good question, but Megan had a good answer. “Because it bothers me. He shouldn’t have to put up with this.”
Shannon gave her a long look, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” She stood up. “Hang in there,” she said.
“Thanks. And thanks for the breakfast.”
Shannon left, and Megan settled in again. She was starting to get curious looks, she knew, and it made her feel a bit awkward, but the whole point of this was for people to notice her. She wanted people to think about why she was there.
She saw a new group of people arrive shortly after nine, and wondered if they were the state authorities. The FBI had mobilized fast the day before, and they’d taken control of the case as if it was their right, but Megan wasn’t really sure where the lines of jurisdiction were going to be drawn. She assumed the DEA would fight to investigate their own, and the Department of Justice would probably want to get involved. Montana State Police, the Montana Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney for Montana—Megan had lost track of all the groups she was hearing mentioned. The one thing she still hadn’t heard was that Styler was under arrest, or had even been brought in for questioning. She supposed the feds might have snuck her in through the back door, or maybe taken her to a different building entirely. Megan was out of the loop now, and she was pretty sure that it was going to stay that way.
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